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Need help with adding hard drive.....

Navy Chief

Navy Chief

Senior Member
I am trying to install another hard drive, but am having problems.

Formatting finished ok, but am now having problems accessing one of my existing hard drives. Somehow, the boot sequence has changed.

I am getting the following msg:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt. <Windows root>/system32.\hal.dll. Please reinstall a copy"

Now if I disconnect the new drive, all reverts back to normal.

Any help?

Thanks.

NC
 
Just a thought...

Is your new drive to be the master or slave drive? If it's to be the master, it'll need the OS installed on it.
 
I had planned to use it as a slave drive. There are no jumper settings on the back of it though. I have three other existing drives; all with XP Pro on them.

NC
 
Also, with SATA drives, you have sockets that are color coded and in order. 1st is your main HD with OS. Then all slaves go under that socket. (I think the main one is yellow, cant remember).

Just switch the cables to the reverse order and try it.


If you wish for the 'new' drive to be the main drive, it will need Windows on it. You cannot start windows on a slave drive or aux drive. So you will need to run that. Best to disconnect the old drive when installing Windows so you do not accidentally erase valuable data from the other drive (original drive).


Hope that helps...


<--- has 6 alternate drives. :d




Bill
 
NC, I have found out in the past that if you add another hard drive for some reason thr BIOS selects that one to boot from. Reboot and tap on the delete key until it boot into your BIOS and then swing over towards the left to boot opt. and change the boot to the one your OS in on.
 
This is hard to explain. Maybe I need to get my wife's digital camera to take pictures of my screen, but here goes.

I have three other existing hard drives: C:, D:, and E:.

My boot.ini defaults to drive E:, which has FSX on it.

I was able to format the new drive, but if it is plugged in, somehow my boot.ini is not operatiing properly, in that I am only able to access drives C: and D:, even though drive E: is listed.

Under setup, the new drive is at the bottom, under the Boot Priority list. I have tried moving it up, etc....but doesn't help.

The new drive does show up under My Computer in either C: or D: drive, as it is formatted, but nothing on it yet.

Pete
 
When I first added an extra drive on my hp last year, I found that if I disconnected the old drive, then booted up the new drive with new OS on it, then shut down the computer, recliped the SATA drive cable to the old HD back in (this time into the slave socket), and rebooted, it then showed up proper with the new drive being the OS drive and the old drive being the extra drive (info storage).

But.. If you dont have an OS on that new drive, its not going to magically boot up as C drive as it doesnt have OS on it. (At least that is my understanding of computers, which isnt much. I think that C drive is usually your OS drive).


Bill
 
I think what I'll end up doing is going ahead and loading XP onto that drive. My boot.ini will probably have to be edited. Maybe the answer?

Thanks.

Pete
 
Heres'a dumb question NC. Do you actually need an OS installed on the newest HDD?

MY 2nd SATAII drive is F and no OS is installed on it. And I can play games installed to F Drive with no problem. I have the BMW M3 Challenge game on that drive and it runs perfectly. Plus F Drive is also used for storage.
 
Gary,

I don't really, however I still have the problem of not being able to boot up one of my existing hard drives, as long as the new one is connected. Am sure it is not something hard to fix; I just don't know how to yet.

Pete
 
Pete ,
Did you try to fix the problem with the hal.dll in the Windows\system32 folder ? I'll bet that's where the problem is .
Leon
 
Leon, I haven't done that yet. Was afraid to mess with it. My question about that is, when I disconnect the new drive, all works fine. So why would that file be the problem?

Pete
 
Would a HDD that's empty and unformatted still cause the same problem on startup? If you have one Pete, give it a try.
 
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm
Go there for some possible solutions . I had a corrupt hal file also at one time . I replaced it using what I call the back door method . At that time I had access to another computer and a external hard drive case which made it very easy . And it worked .
I guess if all else fails , I would do like you suggested and install XP on the new hard drive . Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't MS say that the operating system must be on the C drive ? And should it not be the only master drive ?
And all the others be slaves drives .
Leon
 
Also... Disconnect all other drives when installing windows. I have heard people say that it can reformat all drives on the system, so to be careful, you may wish to disconnect the others before doing so...


Just a humble heads up.


Bill
 
First thing that has got to happen before anything will work right is the BIOS has to see all drives. Even when you go into computer management you can do a scan and it should be able to find all drives on your system. If either of those ways don't work...you have either a bad cable or something is not set up right in the BIOS.
 
Oh the Bios sees all the drives. And the new one does show up in My Computer listings of drives. But when it is connected, something is keeping me from accessing one of the other hard drives.

Pete
 
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